Take a Breath

I’d like everyone to join me in taking a nice long slow deep breath…

Close your eyes and breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth…

INHAAAAAALLLLLE…

And Exhale…

And one more… in and out…

Breathing is something so fundamental to life and so powerful, yet it’s happens mostly autonomously, and we rarely give it a sliver of thought. Yet breathing is core to our Being and the gateway to both better control our reaction to the world around us but also to lose control and experience altered states of consciousness.

The notion and power of Breath came to me via my sister, Georgia who attended a holotropic breath class on a whim a couple of years ago, then found herself in a completely altered state of consciousness and was informed that “I” [being me] “had to wake up.” The NERVE!

For those of you unfamiliar with holotropic or transformational breathwork [probably everyone?!] The practice of holotropic breathwork involves using a controlled breathing process to access altered states of consciousness, with the goal of obtaining some kind of enlightenment.

The next day Georgia called me and breathlessly told me her brief story and how I needed to ‘Wake Up”. And after my ego responded with an additional jolt of self-doubt for being “asleep” in the first place, I agreed to embark on a journey to begin a meditation practice — or at least give it a try.

So how many of you use conscious breathing as a way to relax? Think about it — before a big client presentation or any experience that may induce a stressful response, it’s a pretty common practice to take a long, slow breath to center your being and get into performance mode. And mindful breathing is the first step to developing a fruitful meditation practice.

Meditation positively affects every aspect of your life, costs nothing, and can be done anywhere, anytime, and for any amount of time. Science is just starting to explore the effects meditation has on the human condition and despite some detractors, organizations like Apple, Google, and Nike promote mindfulness meditation as part of their respective employee development programs.

Even the U.S Military began an international campaign to train soldiers deep breathing and meditation techniques to improve focus during chaos. And as a spiritual practice, the five major religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all practice forms of meditation and have done so for millennia.

So, there must be something to this meditation thing. But what exactly IS meditation?

According to our friends at Wikipedia, Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique — such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity — to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Scholars have found meditation elusive to define, as practices vary both between traditions and within them.

In my journey through meditation, I’ve found that meditation is what you make it. And for me, it all started with a focus on my breath.

Regardless how you start, meditation is a practice, with free-flowing boundaries and endless possibilities. And even though I had toyed with the practice of meditation in my younger years, it wasn’t until I had committed to practice in the last 2 years that the benefits really began to manifest. Clarity, calm, compassion — these three traits became my modus operandi, especially when confronted with life’s many challenges.

These benefits alone have been well worth the countless hours I’ve spent in quiet, mindful meditation. However, the changes in my human experience go well beyond that. The spiritual connection that can be achieved through meditation cannot be denied, and personally I’ve found a new sense of ease in feeling complete gratitude for elements of life I used to take for granted.

Challenging events and people became opportunities to learn about myself and the greater human condition. And the gifts that manifest through the day, no longer go unnoticed.

With everything going on in the world and the many challenges we face throughout the day, there’s a greater need than ever to connect to something more — something beyond our individual experience. Meditation offers you a door to the world within — a world of infinite wonder and endless possibilities and a path to discovering the experience of the collective consciousness and our true Being.

And all you have to do is breathe.

Now in…and out….

Thank you — Namaste!